Hundreds of people died and entire villages and towns disappeared when tidal waves hit Somalia's coastline along its central and northeastern regions, a Somali presidential spokesman said Monday.

The waves, which hit on Sunday, were triggered by the 9.0-magnitude undersea quake centered off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, 4,500 kilometers (2,800 miles) away.

The "human loss is in the hundreds in the central and northeastern coastal area. ... Entire villages and coastal town have been swept away by the tidal waves and there is severe damage to property," said Yusuf Ismail, spokesman of Somalia's President Abduallhi Yusuf Ahmed.

The spokesman is based in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, where the Somali parliament is based because the Somali capital is considered too dangerous.

He said he could not give an exact figure of the number dead because "we're focussing on extending our limited relief to the badly affected people."

An Associated Press reporter in the Somali capital Mogadishu said that, according to elders speaking on two-way radios and local journalists, the death toll had risen there to more than 50 people, up from nine people dead Sunday.

Source: Agencies